Spring road bans will just have to wait a little bit longer as the recent cold snap has promoted the Ministry of Highways to suspend road bans.

"Spring road bans started coming on in the southern parts of the province last week," explained Doug Wakabayashi with the Ministry of Highways. "Over the long weekend, we took a look at temperatures, we monitored the temperatures of the roads themselves and the forecast for next week is for really cold temperatures, much colder than normal. We felt at this time we could suspend spring road bans without running the risk of unnecessary damage to the roads from the increased weight of trucks."

"We feel at this time it will be a little bit of a benefit to farmers especially because with the backlog in the grain handling, obviously when producers get the chance to deliver grain they need to move as much as they can as quick as they can."

The update is for all secondary highways. The one exception would be where there might be permanent weight restrictions. RMs also have the option to temporarily lift road bans.

"Typically at the start of spring road bans season, you'll see the road bans start to come on in the southwest corner and they move east and north as the weather warms up."

"What our crews do at this time at this time of the year is they monitor, we have thermometers embedded in the road itself so we'll take a look at road temperatures and also the weather forecast. When things start to warm up, you can start to see road bans come on quite quickly."

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